Re: The AI Pretender design is insane!
 

In a recent battle, AI Argatha had 3 earth mages chain-cast curse of stones without considering the magic resistance of everyone involved. The pretender cannot be everywhere to buff every army either. Nevertheless, Earth is hard for the AI to mess up.

The AI isn't efficient with any gems in general. I was more impressed with the astral and nature paths under the AI.

A water9 AI land nation could cast Tethis' Blessing send it's troops into the water & then override Tethis' Blessing with another global killing their troops. I've seen it happen. The AI hurting itself with Wrath of the Sea could be possible too since the AI has no problem casting Utterdark & Burden of Time to kill itself. But if the map has no/little water then it's not so bad.

Bogbeasts require a water path so as long as you don't mix water & nature on the same unit you're fine. Nature8 allows for all nature globals and the regeneration is nice on sacreds with higher life. Mass Protection, Relief and Mass Regeneration can be nice army buffs too. The benefits from the nature globals I mentioned earlier alone would far outweigh the rare tarrasque IF the AI ever even it makes one which I've yet to see. I have seen Niefelheim with Gift of Health.

I've never seen the AI use teleport or astral gateway ever. Anti-Magic and Will of Fates are nice mass army buffs too. Unfortunately, I don't think the AI does Master Enslave or Arcane Domination. SoAP is a big help for the AI finding magic sites. The biggest danger is it going feebleminded, which is why I suggested an immobile with a chalice. It doesn't need to be the pretender.

If you don't experiment you'll never know for sure.

Re: The AI Pretender design is insane!
 

In fact I haven't experimented a lot boosting only pretenders as there is a better way to boost AIs : giving them some provinces with
-recruitable powerful units (troglodytes, trolls, knights on a province with high ressources)
-immobiles mages and a lab or appropriate site (ie enter to summon bane + immobile d1 mage)
-known gems prod sites (in provinces owned or nearby provinces)

Then you may let AI design the pretender, even if the choice is strange it will be hard.

(but I've tried one time to duel an AI just boosted by an immortal E10 cyclops, and I think it's one of the best boost if you just change pretender -but you may add nature and fire of course; give it relics etc-)

Re: The AI Pretender design is insane!
 

Guys, lighten up.

Just programming a system not to lose at tic-tac-toe is hard, and that is a closed, super-simple, well-defined system.

Here we're talking about a super-complex system. The mere fact that it [AI] can do anything even remotely intelligent is incredible.

Don't criticize it.
Point out difficulties, surely, and any gaping holes, and if that isn't enough, join an MP game.
That'll teach you.

Re: The AI Pretender design is insane!
 

Not really, since Tic Tac Toe has a known undefeatable strategy.
But yes, even slightly more complex games are very hard to write good AIs for.

Re: The AI Pretender design is insane!
 

Even Checkers and Connect Four have been "solved". That means there is no way for an AI programmed correctly to lose. These are much simpler games, though.

Re: The AI Pretender design is insane!
 

I consider the pretender I ran into to be an example of a gaping hole.